


Fragment Five

by R_Quarion



Series: The Catalogue of Frowns [4]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Chubby Aziraphale (Good Omens), Comforting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Grounding, Hannibal references, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Kissing, Lucid Dreaming, M/M, Mild Blood, Nightmares, Panic, Poetry, angel falling, intertextuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 03:23:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19939405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Quarion/pseuds/R_Quarion
Summary: Crowley finds himself back in the fall, Aziraphale does his utmost to help. Crowley believes that the judgement cast upon him makes his words meaningless to his angel. The angel has other ideas.





	Fragment Five

Billowing was a word of such grace. Yet. That was what Crowley had been separated from. He could feel it. The difference in everything within half an instant. The grace of an angel. _Gone_. Just like that. And before he knew it, the fall had begun. It was all that his head could muster. The whirlwinds that were shredding through him. Into his ears, screaming in his head, then swiftly leaving once more. As if a ghost. And well, it certainly was haunting. Stomachs didn't flip, not literally, what they did do was churn and grind away at one’s own vessel. Crowley could feel that too. The way that acid seemed to replace the oxygen in his bloodstream.  


Crowley knew lots of _facts_. Most angels did, it was a part of the job. However all the information he knew about falling was being obscured by other senses. The billowing noises blocked out the memory of learning that when one falls, their cells will burst on impact. His own screaming blocked out the knowledge that he would weigh more once he hit the ground. Gabriel had a habit of explaining, in threat, that the force generated by falling would lead to a  _ hell _ of a landing. Angels didn’t like knowing such things and so, they avoided the fall as best they can. Crowley had missed that chance. The fall had begun and the feathers among his wings were becoming stained by ashes.

Embers darted through his vision. A vision which was being stolen from him among the weightless fall. Fingertips reaching out desperately to grasp at  _ something,  _ grab at  _ anything _ . With blinded eyes and skin catching fire, the plummet was taking him. Of course he could try to  _ imagine _ he weren’t falling. That the exosphere wasn’t leaving his fingertips as he was pulled into the atmosphere. But those tugs of gravity were splitting at his skin. It started where he was reaching out, fingertips of his vessel rupturing from where his nails met skin. The broken seams widened with each second, becoming lacerations. A part of him hoped he would be pulled apart entirely. The impact couldn’t be nearly as bad as the fall…  _ could it? _

Darkness was a word of such familiarity. Crowley usually liked the dark. Or, he was  _ supposed  _ to. It was all Hell had and therefore he had to live among it. Heavy smog, suffocating smoke, taunting fog. But this fall, the fall that had just begun, was the  _ beginning  _ of all of that. Crowley  _ had  _ been sided with the light. But the fall dictated otherwise. This was the beginning of a new, traitorous chapter shrouded in darkness. As if hearing these considerations, the universe decided to wake him up at the sound of a click. It was then that Crowley shot up to a sitting position. The world returned in blurry colours and uneven contrasts. There must have been an obstruction in his chest for there was no movement. Crowley couldn't breath, Crowley couldn't see, Crowley couldn't function. Not like this. Not during the fall.  


It was once Crowley realised that the burning sensation of his eyes was indeed crying, that the hyperventilating began to set in. That was nasty too. The more he breathed in, the worse it became. Tightness gripped at the muscles in his chest and that, rather quickly, welled at his eyes once more. Crowley was crying and breathing much too viciously.  
"Oh my, darling..." There were arms around him before he could even place where he was. He knew one thing. That he was beside Aziraphale. No doubt about it. The angel nuzzled his nose into Crowley's hair and breathed softly into it, "shh, shh, shhh, it's okay my dear. You're safe. You're safe with me."  
Of course throughout heaving breaths and the wild panic, Crowley gripped his hands desperately at Aziraphale's soft arms, his waist, his hips, anything. Anything at all.  
"Angel it's... t-the..." Crowley didn't want to say it. Saying it put the words out into the air. In the air they would hang and linger. They would become set into reality, if said aloud. _ "Angel, I'm falling again." _

Aziraphale had only ever been told stories about the fall. Of course he had never been through it. He was an angel of God with all of God's given grace. The stories he had been told had also been told by other angels of the same grace. Never had the perspective of the fallen been anywhere near him. Part of Aziraphale wanted to ask about the fall. He never had though. That story was best left unspoken.  
"Oh it's awful, Angel." The pain in Crowley's voice hurt Aziraphale beyond what he was expecting, "help me, _please_."   
Crowley was not one to beg. But he did this time. The strain in his vocal cords, the shake in his limbs.  
"Dear, take my hand." And he did so in an instant. Aziraphale sat lent against the head of the bed with Crowley between his legs with his back against Aziraphale’s chest. Shaking and trembling, the demon was truly breaking. Aziraphale's heart ached.

Of course he had woken up once Crowley had started murmuring things in his sleep. And then he had become uneasy. Tossing and turning, his teeth grinding, fingers digging into the mattress and leaving little ash stains as he did so. The quilt had begun hissing with ignition. The demon’s nightmare had been enough to nearly cause a house fire. It had taken him much too long to wake Crowley up, finally doing so with a click of his fingers. Said fingers were now intertwined with the demon’s as he brushed the pad of his thumb over Crowley’s knuckles. Softly pressing his nose into his orange hair, Aziraphale hushed him with the most comforting of tones. It hurt to listen to Crowley’s sobs much more than the angel had expected them to feel. Maybe it was the croak of a raw, sobbing throat. Maybe it was the shaking as if he were being electrocuted. Maybe, just maybe, Aziraphale’s care for Crowley was deeper than he had once assumed. A binding of souls.

“I need you to do something for me, my dear?” Aziraphale wasn’t entirely sure if it were the right thing to do. But he wanted to help. “Tell me your name.”   
“I--” Clearly he was too on edge to protest, “A-Anthony Crowley.”   
“Perfect. And what’s the time?”   
“Quarter past three in the morning.”   
“And where are we?”   
“Soho, London, why do you ask..?" At least that confused frown that was sweeping across the demon's face was one he was familiar with. Less so a frown of fear and more so a frown given when someone asks how ' _ do not walk on the grass _ ' signs get there in the first place?  
“Alright, you’re doing beautifully…” Aziraphale pressed his lips softly against the demon’s ears and whispered, “Now, repeat all of those facts to me.”   
“I- I--” Crowley didn’t understand but he did listen. “My n-name is-- Anthony Crowley… it’s a quarter past three in Soho, London.”  
The winds still felt like they were pulling at his skin. The open wound of where his grace _ had been  _ was stinging like, well, like hell. Of course it wasn’t a physical wound. None of them were. The missing grace, lacerations, burns. But Crowley could feel his form being shifted under the weight of what felt like the world. He was no longer affecting space-time, space-time was affecting him. It were as if all the stars he had helped to build were exploding on him.  
“Oh you’re doing just splendid…” Aziraphale was still slightly moving him back and forth, arms wrapped around the demon. The both of them tangled in draping bed sheets. Silky fabric brushing bare skin, drops of sweat entangled where it hung by Crowley. Aziraphale ignored the ash stains that had grown on the mattress sheet where Crowley’s back had been. Fire was inescapable for the fallen, it seemed.   
“I-it’s a quarter past three in Soho, London, my name is Anthony J Crowley…”   


_ Aziraphale was grounding him. _

It took up until that point for the distraught demon to realise that the angel had been bringing him back to reality. To the present. How ironic that an angel was  _ helping  _ a being from the fall. Although it was in an angel’s nature to help. Was it in an angel’s nature to help a demon? No. But, during the fall, was the being more-so angel or more-so demon? It was a question that Aziraphale had wondered about before. He had come to the conclusion that if it were Crowley; it didn’t matter the form he took. Crowley had his heart. And, in the immediate situation, his hand. Aziraphale had begun to press soft kisses against Crowley’s whitened knuckles. The demon was clutching awfully hard, his other hand on the outer side of the angel’s thigh. Fingertips pressed into plush skin beneath silk quilts.  
“Soho, London. Quarter to three. Anthony Crowley.” He had begun repeating the statements over and over in a loop of strainted tones. Azirphale whispered promises into his ear. They both held onto each other as if they were the only things ever worth holding onto. “Talk to me angel, say something,  _ anything…  _ God knows that the judgment on me means that I’m not worth any of those syllables. _"_

Aziraphale pressed his lips together and his brow furrowed. Saying  _ something  _ or  _ anything  _ was not nearly specific enough. To hell with that statement, Aziraphale knew Crowley was worth everything the universe had to offer. But Aziraphale found some words worth letting loose,   
_ “Whom should I choose for my Judge…?” _ The angel moved Crowley’s hand so his palm was facing them. In it he drew small circles and uneven swirls. Little beads of light dancing across the palm of his hand. He lent inwards, slowly kissing the skin at the back of the demon’s neck. It was lined with a thin layer of cold sweat as he finally,  _ finally _ , calmed his breathing,  
_ “...ye who have eyes to detect…” _ Aziraphale felt Crowley’s hand soften the grip on his thigh and, instead, was slowly kneading that soft flesh, Aziraphale couldn’t help but hum,  _ “and Gall to Chastise the imperfect...”  _ Crowley did have to admit that the angel’s words were becoming lost on him. But they were said in such a whisper that Crowley found himself hypnotised. _  
“Have you the heart, too, that loves... feels... and rewards the Compleat?”_

Crowley was less aware of poets over time then Aziraphale was. The demon claimed that most poets reminded him of the fourteenth century.  _ Good lor-- bad lor-- somewhat average lord; did Crowley hate fourteenth century.  _ Whenever Aziraphale suggested that Crowley look into poets, he would scoff and say, “another Geoffrey Chaucer? Maybe Sir Gwain and the Green Knight? If I have to hear The Vision Of Piers Plowman one more time-- ‘By Christ!’ Exclaimed a Knight, ‘he’s giving us the best advice there is!’” Aziraphale would always roll his eyes teasingly at the way Crowley impersonated fourteenth century poets. For people in a time he claimed to hate, he clearly had been listening to Aziraphale reading them. The passage he had just recited was one much later then the fourteenth century; it had been the seventeenth to be exact. Samuel Taylor Coleridge had spoken of judgement and less so about the best advice given by a knight. As each word had left Aziraphale’s lips, how much he meant them had sunk into Crowley.  
“Oh, my dearest...” Aziraphale sighed lovingly, “you are worth much more than merely my words. You are worth the universe, in its entirety… of course I don’t understand the pain of the fall.. so if you need space, if you need time to think by yourself--”

Aziraphale couldn’t finish that sentence. Crowley swept him into a kiss. Soft yet desperate. Divine but sinful. Their lips fit better than any lock and key. That was something they could both be sure of. All locks and keys were  _ always _ separated by however many atom’s widths. That didn’t happen for them, Crowley always melted into Aziraphale’s kisses. He pulled away and looked up to his angel with weepy eyes and whispered,  
_ “I don’t want you to go... a life without you would be more painful then the fall...” _

**Author's Note:**

> Save my soul I love them.  
> If ya wanna chat, my insta is ImmortalError


End file.
